Glory Over Everything
Beyond the Kitchen House
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
A novel of family and long-buried secrets along the treacherous Underground Railroad.
The author of the New York Times bestseller and beloved book club favorite The Kitchen House continues the story of Jamie Pyke, son of both a slave and master of Tall Oakes, whose deadly secret compels him to take a treacherous journey through the Underground Railroad.
Published in 2010, The Kitchen House became a grassroots bestseller. Fans connected so deeply to the book’s characters that the author, Kathleen Grissom, found herself being asked over and over “what happens next?” The wait is finally over.
This new, stand-alone novel opens in 1830, and Jamie, who fled from the Virginian plantation he once called home, is passing in Philadelphia society as a wealthy white silversmith. After many years of striving, Jamie has achieved acclaim and security, only to discover that his aristocratic lover Caroline is pregnant. Before he can reveal his real identity to her, he learns that his beloved servant Pan has been captured and sold into slavery in the South. Pan’s father, to whom Jamie owes a great debt, pleads for Jamie’s help, and Jamie agrees, knowing the journey will take him perilously close to Tall Oakes and the ruthless slave hunter who is still searching for him. Meanwhile, Caroline’s father learns and exposes Jamie’s secret, and Jamie loses his home, his business, and finally Caroline.
Heartbroken and with nothing to lose, Jamie embarks on a trip to a North Carolina plantation where Pan is being held with a former Tall Oakes slave named Sukey, who is intent on getting Pan to the Underground Railroad. Soon the three of them are running through the Great Dismal Swamp, the notoriously deadly hiding place for escaped slaves. Though they have help from those in the Underground Railroad, not all of them will make it out alive.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A heart-pounding story about escaped slaves and high society in 1830s Philadelphia and the South, Glory Over Everything kept us glued to the page. Kathleen Grissom shifts between the narrative voices of Jamie Pyke—a sensitive young aristocrat “passing” in white society—and a variety of other characters whose lives intertwine. The novel’s thrilling plot takes lots of unexpected twists and turns, as dark family secrets and illicit romance unfold.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Grissom's follow-up novel to her debut, The Kitchen House, breathes life into the captivating story of Jamie Pyke, son of a white slave owner and biracial mother. In the early 19th century, at the age of 13, Jamie, who had been raised white by his grandmother as a member of the plantation owner's family, learned that his mother was a slave. After shooting his evil father, Marshall, who was going to sell him into slavery, Jamie fled his home in Virginia so that he could continue to live as a free white man in Philadelphia. Nursed back to health by Henry, a black man who lives by scavenging off the land, Jamie finds a job with a silversmith, eventually becoming a successful apprentice. Twenty years later, when Jamie is a thriving businessman, he is afraid to return to the South, believing that he might be captured. But he finds it hard to refuse Henry's request to search for Henry's young son, Pan, a valued member of Jamie's household, who has likely been taken and sold as a slave. The journey south is filled with danger as Jamie meets up with Sukey, a slave who has been protecting Pan. Once Jamie joins Pan and Sukey, the three travel north and face the risks of the Underground Railroad. Grissom's lyrical storytelling is rich with period details, and the novel can be read as either a memorable standalone or a captivating sequel to The Kitchen House.
